Monday, November 24, 2014

I have come across the following Canadian websites, social media websites, and newspaper articles this past week that were of interest to me, and I thought you might be interested in them, too.

History

On 18 November 1883, the first operation of Standard Time in North America began at midnight in eastern Nova Scotia. Scottish-born Sir Sandford Fleming played a major role in introducing the concept around the world.

Simons: Financial woes halt construction of Ukrainian museumhttp://www.edmontonjournal.com/Simons+Financial+woes+halt+construction+Ukrainian+museum/10403819/story.html
The Ukrainian Canadian Museum and Archives of Alberta was supposed to rejuvenate two of Jasper Avenue’s most important Edwardian buildings, kick-start the redevelopment of The Quarters, and provide a marvellous place to preserve and celebrate Alberta’s rich Ukrainian heritage.
But now, two years after construction began, the museum, which was supposed to open this spring, is in trouble.British Columbia

81st Anniversary of the HolodomorThe Holodomor, meaning "death by hunger" in Ukrainian, refers to the great man-made famine of 1932-33 that wiped out millions of Ukrainians. It was recognized by the Canadian government in 2008, when millions of people starved to death.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper issued the following statement commemorating the 81st anniversary of the Holodomor:

"Today is Holodomor Memorial Day, a somber occasion when people around the world remember the forced starvation of millions of Ukrainian men, women and children in 1932 and 1933 by Joseph Stalin’s tyrannical communist regime."

An estimated three to 3.5 million people died of starvation that year, and the famine was caused by agricultural embargoes and economic blockades in Soviet Ukraine that literally starved people to death.

Last year, on the 80th anniversary of the Holodomar, eighty stories were collected from the people who survived the famine, and they are shared on the Share the Story website at http://www.sharethestory.ca/index.html

A new documentary from the National Film Board
of Canada looks back on former premier Danny Williams and his political career,
and will be shown on 10 screens across Newfoundland and Labrador next week.

Elizabeth
Cromwell, president and founder of the Black Loyalist Heritage Society, was
presented with an honourary degree from Mount Saint Vincent University on November 2nd for her work with preserving the black history and culture of Nova Scotia.

Remembering
Our Veterans is a limited-edition book to be published this fall. The
brainchild of Beverley Anderson of MacGregor, it is a compilation of material
she has collected, with the help of other members of an ad hoc group from the
local area.

When
Saskatchewan soldiers went off to fight in the First World War, their stories
and the reactions at home were reported in newspapers across the province. Now, everyone can read those headlines online. Newspaper were written in English,
German, French, and Ukrainian.

The discussion revolved around the question of
whether it is time to consider a new name for British Columbia, and if so, what
could that be?

Story of the Week

Is
the long-form census form on its way back?

The
long-form census form was stopped in June of 2010 , and was replaced by the National Household Survey (NHS), which is a
voluntary survey, and has been the focus of much controversy since then.

The
NHS was intended to be sent to about 4.5 million households. Remember when then-Industry Minister Tony Clement said that the change had been made because of
privacy-related complaints, but when asked about this, he said that the
decision had been made after consulting organizations and governments that worked closely with Statistics Canada.

In
2013, criticism reared its head again with the National Household Survey when
the first set of results were released from the survey.

And
this is when Liberal MP Ted Hsu stepped
in and introduced a private member's bill, “Bill-626,
An Act to amend the Statistics Act”, with the intention appointing a Chief
Statistician and reinstatement of the long-form census in Canada.

So
this is where it stands right at the moment.

On
Saturday evening, I received an email from Mike More, former chair of the
Ottawa Branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society, and former vice-president of the Ontario
Genealogical Society, who said that fellow Ottawa blogger, John D. Reid, on his Anglo- Celtic Connections
blog, has a piece on the private member's bill http://anglo-celtic-connections.blogspot.com/2014/11/bring-back-mandatory-long-form-census.html, and was asking members of the
genealogical community for their support.

The
blog says -

“Ted
Hsu, Member of Parliament for Kingston and the Islands has a new private
member's bill to bring back the mandatory long-form census. Debate on this bill
began last week in Parliament. Your help is sought to build momentum leading up
to the vote expected in February.

Debate
on this bill began last week in Parliament. Your help is sought to build
momentum leading up to the vote expected in February.

The
government replaced the 2011 long-form census with a voluntary National
Household Survey (NHS). Unsurprisingly, the NHS data is of poor quality and
can't be compared with previous census data. Experts who rely on this data, and
the continuity of these data sets, call the NHS data worthless.

Bill
C-626 is a private member's bill that will reinstate the mandatory long-form
census and expand the authority of the Chief Statistician.

Throughout
this debate, and leading up to the eventual vote on Bill C-626, you are asked
to please:

1)
Write or speak to your MP to encourage them to support the bill and reinstate
the mandatory long-form census

2)
Write a letter or op-ed for your local paper explaining the value of the census
and the need to pass Bill C-626

3)
Share this information with your friends, family and colleagues

It's
not too late to fight for the census! If you wish to contact MP Ted Hsu, please
email ted.hsu@parl.gc.ca.”

Saturday, November 15, 2014

The FamilySearch site has added more records to their Nova Scotia Probate Records (1760-1993).

This site includes “records of probate proceedings from Nova Scotia. The records include estate files, inventories, wills, administrations and other records related to probate. Most of the records are dated from 1800-1940, but coverage varies by area.”

I just briefly looked at the records on the Barrington Distract area since I have family there (the descendants of Henry Blades), and found that the records are of faint quality, but with patience and years of reading these type of records, I was able to pick out probates of interest.

So give it a try. Remember that they are not indexed, so you will have to skim through them until you find the desired record.

Wednesday, November 12, 2014

Alan Campbell, the president of the Ontario Genealogical Society (OGS), wishes to let everybody know that the Norfolk Genealogical Society has transferred all of its work that it has done on local records will "remain in the community via the loan of the Branch Library collection to a local repository. "

Campbell goes on to say that "Although this is a sad occasion, I must celebrate the numerous volunteer hours put in by Norfolk County Branch volunteers which have resulted in this permanent legacy for present and future researchers. Also, consider the number of hours Norfolk County Branch volunteers must have spent in helping local and distance researchers with their family history research. Thank you Norfolk County Branch volunteers!"

One Manitoba soldier named Fred Baragar was
particularly prolific in his writing. He had studied English at the University
of Manitoba, and wrote hundreds and hundreds of pages to home, most addressed “from the somewhere.”

Michael Winter takes us along the winding path
the men of the Newfoundland Regiment followed during the First World War. Winter's
book, Into the Blizzard: Walking with the Newfoundland Dead, is part history,
part travelogue, and part author's musings on how our modern minds contemplate
the past.

The
Conservative government is throwing its support behind an NDP private member’s
bill that would make Remembrance Day a national statutory holiday, as Canadians
mourn the death of two Canadian soldiers killed in separate attacks on home
soil.

Fighting
in Flanders - Gas. Mud. Memory: New exhibition explores Canadian experience in
Belgium during First World War

This
exhibition examines the challenges Canadian soldiers encountered while serving in the last region
of Belgium still in Allied hands. It also delves into the memories that remain
and highlights the iconic poem In Flanders Fields.

Heritage
Minute has created more than 70 short films on moments and characters taken
from history. Many vignettes have become ingrained in memory — either from
their content or from the frequency with which they run on Canadian television
— and have emerged as a sort of national history teacher.

On Thursday at the City Archives, Saskatoon
Mayor Donald Atchison will be unveiling a World War Book of Remembrance that
documents every solider from Saskatoon and student at the University of
Saskatchewan who enlisted and died while engaged in combat from 1914 to 1918.

In
the brisk October air of early morning on a dark highway in central Alberta, a
quiet group of men and women stood sentinel alongside 116 Canadian flags waving
in the breeze in remembrance of 116,000 Canadian war dead from 1900 to 2014.

When
the call came to fight for King and Country, small rural communities in Alberta
were on side, perhaps accounting for proportionately more soldiers than larger
towns and cities, because of their close ties to Britain, says a historian.

Story of the Week

The
Archives of Ontario is offering a New WWI Speakers Series

The
first speaker, Jane E. MacNamara from the Ontario Genealogical Society (OGS), will talk about Inheritance Interrupted: WWI reflected in Ontario Estate
Files. The date of her talk will be Thursday, November 13, 2014.

The
Great War cut short many lives and disrupted the expected passing of property
and goods to the next generation. Laws were changed, society changed, the world
changed. Drawing from estate files from across the province; this presentation
will show examples of these changes and demonstrate how reading between the
lines and understanding the process and implications of inheritance records can
enhance family and local history—in any era.

The
second speaker will be Stewart Boden, Outreach Officer & Exhibit Curator,
Archives of Ontario, and the title of the talk will be Curating Dear Sadie:
Love, Lives and Remembrance from Ontario’s First World War, from the current AO's onsite exhibit of the same name, which he researched and curated.

The date of the
talk will be Thursday,
February 5, 2015, 6:30 pm - 7:45 pm.

Through Stewart’s
presentation, the audience will hear about challenges that came from
researching the Archives records, and taking different paths while curating the
exhibit.

The
series will be held in the George Spragge Classroom at the Archives of Ontario.

Reminder: Check the Canadian Week in Review next Monday for
the latest in Genealogy, Heritage, and History news in Canada. It’s the ONLY
news blog of its kind in the country!The
next post will be on 17 November 2014.

The
Library and Archives Canada recently sent out this press release, stating that
its people have been busy cleaning up some famous photos taken of the First
World War, for instance, the two most famous one photos that we all know as
“Going over the Top” and the “29th Battalion advancing over No Man’s Land
during the Battle of Vimy Ridge.”

“They
have been made more accessible to Canadians by enhancing their descriptions
through thematic organization in the online database. This has been part of a
much larger project to organize and describe the entire Department of National
Defence’s photograph collection at LAC to ensure that the records are accurate,
complete and accessible to the public. When the war began in 1914, most
photographers and journalists were ordered away from the front. The First
Canadian Division entered the European war theatre the following year. Finally,
in 1916, millionaire press baron Max Aitken was granted permission to start the
Canadian War Records Office (CWRO) and it became Canada’s ‘eyewitness to war’
sending reports home from the front. Soon, these reports were also accompanied
by photographs and paintings.”

Saturday, November 8, 2014

Recently,
Ancestry.ca took a survey, with the results showing that 36% of Canadians
didn’t know if they had ancestors who fought in either the First or Second
World War.

In
an effort to help rectify this, from November 8 to 11, Ancestry is giving
Canadians the chance to discover the military heroes in their family by
providing free access to more than 3.6 million online military records at

“The
site now includes enlistments to the end of 1915. It contains an additional 557
individuals for a total of 2732. The time between updates this time has been
exceptionally long due to the increasing amount of information going online, in
particular Library and Archives Canada, which I am trying to include in my
database. Hopefully the next update will come much sooner. The website is still
limited to a nominal roll and chronology but in time I hope to include as much
detail as I can find on each individual. I invite everyone to have a look at my
site and if they have any information they would like to share to fill out the
form I have provided on my general Cape Bretoners at War site <https://sites.google.com/site/cbatwar/>.”

Reminder:
Each year, GenealogyCanada sponsors a contest, and this year in honour of the
100th anniversary of the First World War, the question is – Which province in
Canada sent the largest number of men and women to fight in the First World
War?

Friday, November 7, 2014

To commemorate the 100th anniversary of the
start of the First World War, OGS has launched a new Heritage Society. The
First World War Society is a lineage Society open to anyone who can show direct
descent from a person who served in a documented capacity on the Allied side of
the First World War.

To qualify for this Society, your
research must show that your named ancestor(s) fits in the category above, and
then show the line of descent from that ancestor(s) to you or the person you
wish named on the certificate.

Reminder: Each year, GenealogyCanada
sponsors a contest, and this year in honour of the 100th anniversary of the
First World War, the question is – Which province in Canada sent the largest
number of men and women to fight in the First World War?

Each year, GenealogyCanada sponsors a contest, and this year in honour of the 100th anniversary of the First World War, the question is – Which province in Canada sent the largest number of men and women to fight in the First World War?

In 1915, Sir Charles Tupper, the last surviving Father of Confederation, died in England at age 94. He took part in the Charlottetown, Quebec, and London conferences, and was prime minister for a short period in 1896.

Gilmour Hill is a 1.1-kilometre steeply sloped path running through Battlefields Park between Champlain Boulevard and Québec's Upper Town. Built around 1910, the road was not designed for winter travel.

This November, Shaw Media commemorates 100 Years of Remembrance with a commercial-free hour-long live Global News special on Remembrance Day, and four days of special programming on the HISTORY Channel.

C.P. Champion: How the Crimean War of 1853 helped shaped the Canada of today

Because of the abundance of animals, Hubbard Point, as it’s known in English, is a popular hunting ground and stopping point for Inuit on the west coast of Hudson Bay, an eight-hour boat ride south of Arviat, and just north of Churchill, in northern Manitoba.

On Tuesday, that daughter, 69-year-old Pat Mialkowsky, helped helped unveil a plaque at the Saskatchewan Railway Museum commemorating the 8,579 Western Canadians of Eastern European and German descent who were interned during and after the First World War. A larger concrete memorial will replace it in the spring.

Alberta11 Days of Remembrance: Citizens of Burdett fought hard in First World War

When the call came to fight for King and Country, small rural communities in Alberta were on side, perhaps accounting for proportionately more soldiers than larger towns and cities, because of their close ties to Britain, says a historian.

Records released by the British National Archives reveal the identity of the spy code-named Jack King as Eric Roberts, an unassuming banker who retired and came to Canada in 1956. He died on the island in 1972 at the age of 65.

Story of the Week

Veterans' Week

Just a reminder that I will be featuring Veterans' Week (November 5 to November 11th) on the blog fromNovember 5 to November 11th, as I have done for the past three years.

Please use the blog archives link on the right side of this blog - choose the year, month, and day you wish to view the post. Here are links to a few of the archived postings -

About Me

www.GenealogyCanada.com

Please visit our site - www.GenealogyCanada.com
There is lots of Canadian genealogy news to browse through, so please drop in for a spell.
There are also Canadian heritage and history news items, and the "Website of the Month" - always a surprise treat.
Thank you for dropping by - we appreciate your visits!!

Elizabeth Lapointe Research Services

Need a Canadian researcher?

Looking for someone who came to the United States from Canada, or went to Canada from the U.S., the U.K., or Europe?

I specialize in cross-border migration, and offer many options in finding your family.

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Booklet #1 - The War of 1812: Canada and the United States

The booklet, “The War of 1812: Canada and the United States”, gives a synopsis of the causes of the War, and details the battles that took place (who, where, and when), and which included British forces, Blacks, and Aboriginal warriors who fought on both sides of the conflict.

Booklet #2 – Migration: Canada and the United States

These headings offer good examples of those who came to Canada, or of Canadians who left for the U.S, and why. The booklet gives a synopsis of what records to look for, the books written on the subject, where to find online resources, and a bonus list of some famous Canadians who migrated to the U.S.